MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - Vermont senators voted Friday to call for the impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, saying their actions have raised "serious questions of constitutionality."

The nonbinding resolution was approved 16-9 without debate - all six Republicans in the chamber at the time and three Democrats voted against it.

Bush and Cheney's actions in the U.S. and abroad, including in Iraq, "raise serious questions of constitutionality, statutory legality, and abuse of the public trust," the resolution reads.

The Vermont Senate is believed to be the first state chamber in the country to pass such a resolution, said Bill Wyatt, a spokesman for the National Conference of State Legislatures.

"Many chambers passed resolutions about the war in Iraq, but none that we are aware have called for impeachment," he said.

Advocates were thrilled with the vote.

"I think it's going to have a tremendous political effect, a tremendous political effect on public discourse about what to do about this president," said James Leas, a vocal advocate of withdrawing troops from Iraq and impeaching Bush and Cheney.

Vermont lawmakers earlier voted to demand an immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq in another nonbinding resolution.

Every time I hear the term 'impeach' I see an angry throng of middle ages villagers attacking somebody with baskets full of peaches. It's actually a rather fun image.

But in a more serious tone...

I feel that we have been lied to. We went to war to stop Saddam from using weapons of mass destruction. We had solid intelligence that, not only did Saddam possess these weapons, but he was allied with al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden. This intel later turned out to be bad. Invading another country and deposing its ruler is a major act. Doing it without UN backing is a bad idea. And then finding out that we moved on bad intel? Even worse. Finding out after the fact that the Bush administration KNEW the intel was bad? I feel that we have been intentionally misled and now find ourselves in the middle of a war we have no business fighting other than the fact that we were responsible for the power vacuum that spawned it. Our trust has been abused and my brothers and sisters in uniform are dying for it. Is this enough to impeach the executive branch? I think so. However, the wording leaves some worming room.

For the executive branch, only those who have allegedly committed "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" may be impeached. Although treason and bribery are obvious, the Constitution is silent on what constitutes a "high crime or misdemeanor." Several commentators have suggested that Congress alone may decide for itself what constitutes an impeachable offense.

So basically Congress needs to decide if what's been done so far is impeachable. Then it's put to a vote to impeach. If the majority agrees that what's happened is an impeachable offense, then he's impeached and it remains to be seen if he's convicted and removed from office. Nixon left before it could get that far.

I'd love it a little more if this were something with some teeth, but it shows that there is enough discontent in the populace that we're at least talking about it.

It's okay to impeach a president based on his marital relations and misconduct (if it was misconduct, I still hold that his wife knew and figured, "Well, he's still coming home to me at the end of the day, so I don't really care. And this way I can play too!"), basically something that has nothing to do with anyone in the US of A except him and his family and the women he's playing with...

But it's apparently not okay to impeach a president for starting a WAR without due cause. How many Americans have to die before it's a crime on his head! Heck, I'm still pissed off at the amount of "friendly fire" there's been in this war. When the friendly fire happened, Bush had to be gently taken aside and reminded that Canada was not a part of the States and that some sort of statement should be made!

I apolijize and I'm ending this rant before I actually insult somebody here. I just hope they impeach the b******, and get him and his ilk out of power!

Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're God, and an excellent argument for Polytheism. -S.M. Stirling

You mean Cretien?? He was against the war, thankfully, and made me proud to be Canadian the day he refused to put troops in the Middle East. Or maybe you mean Paul Martin or Harper??? (Harper = evil clone-gone-wrong of our favourite George Dubbaya)

Crazy Healer LadyHealth and happiness to you!

The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. -CWG

I think only in Afghanistan but since Martin decided and then the elected Harper decided to send in troops, I stopped listening to the accounts of friendly fire, how many soldiers died today, how many civillians, where they might go tomorrow.

Cretien originally stood up to Bush, which I was so very proud of. Then Martin came in and though was only Prime Minister a few months, shared the fact that he was for Canadian troops in Afghanistan. I cannot remember if we actually sent them out then or not (I believe so), or if we waited until Harper was in government, but I know Harper sent out quite a few more and raised the military budget.

Crazy Healer LadyHealth and happiness to you!

The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. -CWG

It's okay to impeach a president based on his marital relations and misconduct

But it's apparently not okay to impeach a president for starting a WAR without due cause

While I agree wholeheartedly, there's a reason.

Please forgive me. I'm going to go all History and Government for a bit.

Clinton was not impeached because of his relationship with Monica Lewinski. The actual impeachment was more complex. He was actually being investigated for sexual harassment charges filed by Paula Jones in 1994 in regard to events that took place while Clinton was still Governor of Arkansas. She alleged that Mr. Clinton had made unwanted sexual advances toward her and implied that it would affect her job. The prosecution, in attempting to establish a pattern of harassment tried to imply that Clinton had actually harassed Monica Lewinski. She was actually a witness in that trial. During President Clinton's testimony, he declared that he had not had a sexual relationship with her, which of course was a lie and therefor perjury as he was under oath at the time.

The impeachment came about because it was believed that Bill Clinton was sexually harassing women, which is a serious problem for a high official. His perjury in the trial only added to the offense, and his other actions during the suit could be construed as attempts to obstruct justice. Not even the President is above the law. And that's why he was impeached by the House.

While Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in a vote of 228 for to 206 against, the Senate did not approve the impeachment and the action died there with Clinton never being convicted of an impeachable offense. Therefore, he remained in office.

The problem we have in attempting to impeach Bush Jr is that we have no proof that he's done anything legally wrong that would qualify as an impeachable offense. While I'm sure that by a certain definition, he's committed treason in starting a war that has killed thousands of American troops and hundreds of our Allies' troops as well (never mind the astonishing number of Iraqi's killed), the people that make these decisions may not see treason in the same way I do. So let's forget treason. How about those 'high misdemenors'. I would say that abducting people and then holding them against their will in a military prison without a trial is a blatant violation of civil rights. However, the people that this happened to were not American Citizens and it happened outside the US borders. Therefore, the Constitution does not apply and even if it did, the President could claim that these people represented a clear and present danger to the United States and he'd be covered. So we're sunk there too.

On top of everything, the President had the full backing of Congress to start this war. Which means that if we impeach him on the war, we have to impeach them too. (Although I'm fairly certain that the majority of Congress was just as misled as the rest of us.) Unless we can prove without a doubt that he took us to war for some illegal purpose (like providing Haliburton with some serious revenue in government contracts and rebuilding programs) then we can't impeach him.

And even if we could impeach him, we'd still have to get him convicted in order to get him out of office. The whole process of filing the suits and the exploratory committees needed would take forever. The impeachment of Bill Clinton took 4 years. Unless the gods hate us and he somehow figures out a way to get a 3rd term, we only have to suffer through another 638 days of Bush. Voting the Republican Party out of office is the only way this will start to get better.

Even after that, though it's going to be a long, rough road to us being out of Iraq.

Nice, there's a countdown clock and everything! Yeah, when it comes down to it, it would cost too much in both time and money to actually impeach him, and by the time it would be done he'd be out of office anyway. I still wish he could be given an honorary (or dishonorary?) impeachment anyway, just so it can be noted in the history books what a scumbag he really was.

I'm fairly convinced that he will be shooting for a third term. As difficult as it may be, I can see him getting away with it. Of all the things that could convince me of this, it was the stories of civillians dragged out of their homes by the FBI for mild-to-severe anti-Bush slander back when people were finally waking up to realizing the war is just a massacre.

Crazy Healer LadyHealth and happiness to you!

The purpose of a relationship is not to have another who might complete you, but to have another with whom you might share your completeness. -CWG

I actually liked Clinton... Womanizing aside, I can't remember hearing him make decisions that I was horribly against. And this president does it all the time!!

Therefore, even if I had my original facts wrong, I'm holding to my original belief that this should be an open & shut case. He's done great evil, for no point, to the detriment of the Country that he swore to protect.

Trying to create a world, even in words, is good occupational therapy for lunatics who think they're God, and an excellent argument for Polytheism. -S.M. Stirling